The Roman Conquest of the Hellenistic World

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For most of its history, Rome barely bothered with the Greek east. Then, quite suddenly, Rome exploded onto the scene, laying low the two most powerful Hellenistic warrior-kings of the past century. Within ten years, Rome became the undisputed hegemonic power of the Mediterranean world. How did that happen, and why?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad-free right now.
0:04.6	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:13.8	This wasn't what Koynos had expected.
0:20.3	Now that he was actually standing there in the phalanx,
0:22.8	shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other Macedonians,
0:25.6	the shaft of the long pike in his hands,
0:27.9	he couldn't have said what he was thinking
0:29.3	when he and his father, Aritis, had left their farm.
0:32.3	King Philip had called on them to fight the Romans,
0:34.4	and they had answered.
0:35.7	That was despite the fact that Coinos, a teenager,
0:38.1	had barely any beard on his face, while his fathers was now completely gray. Most of the men
0:42.8	with them were the same, youngsters barely out of childhood or the almost elderly. But King Philip
0:48.2	had called, and they answered, because they were Macedonians, and Macedonians fought for their king.
0:54.6	Koinos couldn't see anything.
0:56.4	The slope of the hill, the phalanx occupied, angled downward,
0:59.3	but there was a small rise ahead that blocked his view.
1:02.1	To the sides, the ranks extended so far that all he could glimpse were other Macedonians.
1:06.7	He could hear the battle, though.
1:08.7	A steady wave of sound filtered backward from the front of the formation.
1:12.7	War cries and wordless shouts of defiance.
1:15.4	The clang of steel on steel, splintering spear shafts and cutting through it all the screams of the wounded and dying.
	...

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